Russia and Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia will sign a deal on the establishment of Russian air and naval bases in the separatist region, Russian news agencies reported Thursday.
"The agreement is expected to be signed within the next few months. We need to iron out some technical matters," the Abkhaz leader's spokesman Kristian Bzhania was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti.
The airfield in Gudauta would be deployed before the naval base, Bzhania said, adding that both bases had been established in the Soviet era.
Interfax quoted an unnamed Russian military official as saying that the deployment of the airbase and a Black Sea Fleet naval base at Ochamchira, a seaside town in the breakaway republic, is under discussion.
Russia's Black Sea Fleet is currently based at the Crimean city of Sevastopol as part of a 1997 agreement, under which Ukraine agreed to lease the base to Russia until 2017.
Kiev has said that it would not extend the lease of the base and urged Moscow to start preparations for a withdrawal.
Abkhazia, along with South Ossetia, the other Georgian rebel region, broke from central Georgian rule in the early 1990s following the collapse of the former Soviet Union.
Russia recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states on Aug. 26, 2008, two weeks after a brief war with Georgia, which had launched a sudden attack to reclaim South Ossetia.
The chief of the Russian General Staff, Gen. Nikolai Makarov, said earlier that the Russian military bases in Abkhazia and South Ossetia would be fully staffed with 3,700 personnel each by the end of 2009.
(Xinhua News Agency January 30, 2009)